WND

Google memo 'confirms worst fear' of conservatives

Tech giant in 'censorship business and apparently the lying business'

Art Moore, co-author of the best-selling book "See Something, Say Nothing," entered the media world as a PR assistant for the Seattle Mariners and a correspondent covering pro and college sports for Associated Press Radio. He reported for a Chicago-area daily newspaper and was senior news writer for Christianity Today magazine and an editor for Worldwide Newsroom before joining WND shortly after 9/11. He earned a master's degree in communications from Wheaton College.

News of a leaked internal Google report indicating tech companies intend to censor web content as editors and publishers in response to a political resurgence from the right “confirms our worst fear,” said Media Research Center President Brent Bozell.

“Contrary to Google’s public statements and what they have said to us in private discussions, Google is in the censorship business and apparently the lying business as well,” he said.

Bozell is a leader of a coalition of conservative news organizations they say Google, Facebook, Twitter and others have engaged in censorship of conservative speech that has drastically reduced their traffic on social media.

“We’re going to be meeting with our coalition partners immediately and we will announce next moves very soon,” he said.

Titled “The Good Censor,” the 85-page document acknowledges that Google and other tech platforms now “control the majority of online conversations” and have undertaken a “shift towards censorship” in response to unwelcome political events around the world.

Last month, Breitbart published leaked video footage that showed top executives vowing to ensure the rise of Trump and the populist movement is just a “blip” in history.

An official Google source told Breitbart the document is internal research and should not be regarded as an official company position.

The newly leaked internal document describes unfettered free speech on the internet a “utopian narrative” that has been “undermined” by recent political events and “bad behavior” by users.

The briefing contends the tech giants have been forced to mitigate the competing values of “unmediated marketplace of ideas” vs. “well-ordered spaces for safety and civility.”

It distinguishes between the “American tradition,” which
“prioritizes free speech” over “civility” and the “European tradition” favoring “dignity over liberty and civility over freedom.”

The tech platforms, the briefing says, are now moving toward the European tradition, with Google assuming a new role as the guarantor of “civility” as an “editor” and “publisher.”

In testimony before Congress, however, Google, Facebook and Twitter have insisted that are neutral platforms, which make them immune from Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Breitbart noted that while the “Good Censor” memo’s intended audience is unclear, it obviously spent significant time and effort to produce it.

And many of the briefing’s recommendations are now reflected in Google policy of Google, such as the argument that tech companies will have to censor their platforms if they want to “expand globally.”

Google is constructing a censored search engine to gain access to the Chinese market.

Among other points, the briefing states “users are asking if the openness of the internet should be celebrated after all” and that “free speech has become a social, economic, and political weapon.”

The document, on page 49, accuses President Trump of spreading the “conspiracy theory” that Google autocomplete suggestions unfairly favored Hillary Clinton in 2016.